old friends, bookends..

last night i read something which, as i'm just trying to let god sort me out and get me and him back together again, struck me as manna from amazon. it had arrived, in a book, yesterday, one little chapter, not even two pages...and it struck me..
here it is...

"Your true identity is as a child of god. This is the identity you have to accept. Once you have claimed it and settled in it, you can live in a world that gives you much joy as well as pain. You can receive the praise as well as the blame that comes to you, as an opportunity for strengthening your basic identity, because the identity that makes you free is anchored beyond all human praise and blame. You belong to god and it is as a child of god that you are sent into the world.
you need spiritual guidance, you need people who can keep you anchored in your true identity. The temptation to disconnect from that deep place in you where god dwells, and to let yourself be drowned in the praise or blame of the world always remains.
Since that deep place in you where your identity as a child of god is rooted has been unknown to you for a long time, those who were able to touch you there had a sudden and overwhelming power over you. They became part of your identity. you could no longer live without them. But they could not fulfil that divine role, so they left you, and you felt abandoned. But it is precisely that experience of abandonment that called you back to your true identity as a child of god."

a public admittance, it would seem, of past error on my part, with more than one friendship in mind, and apologies long overdue. I do think now that since god is in charge and since he is allowing me passage into the depths of belonging with him, that all has been for gain. his gain, and hopefully soon, mine, of sorts..

i miss people in manchester. i am concerned that more friendships than i had expected are now dormant, and yet i cannot find it in me to be the only one to pursue them - unreturned calls, unreplied-to emails, generally out-of-loop-ness...particularly in light of the above excerpt. i am in a place of trust with god again for the first time in 2005 really, and am finding new hope in the idea of being one of the family, the original family of three. i both need and want people to walk with, but dear reader, i have roots to put down with god which must not be waylaid or delayed. as much as i miss old friends, and community, i miss him more. and that's a first for me, so i'm going with it..